Decision details

To appoint Stephen Blake Consultancy for a fixed fee of £17,760 for the following services:

·         Production of a Development and Regeneration Strategy for the period 2020-2025

·         Collation of a design code outlining the core design principles to be adhered to for new developments

·         Review of the governance arrangements for development and recommendations as to how these could be streamlined.

·         Advice and recommendations on the resources required to realise the development aspirations of CBC and CBH. This will include detailed costings and a proposed team structure for the short, medium and longer term.

·         To appoint Stephen Blake Consultancy to provide ad hoc development expertise on the housing workstream of the West Cheltenham Cyber Park project at an agreed daily rate of £950 per day (up to a maximum of 7 days).

Following a recent procurement exercise, we now wish to formally appoint Stephen Blake Consultancy to lead on the schedule of services noted above.

Due to the fact that the anticipated contract value was below £25,000 a closed tender exercise was pursued and 3 companies invited to submit a quotation. 2 companies (Stephen Blake Consultancy and Company B) submitted compliant bids. The third company, Company C declined to submit a tender on the grounds of the stated programme.

Following the formal evaluation of the tender returns and the interview process (15% overall score), the results were as follows;

Stephen Blake – 87.7%

Company B – 83%.

One reference for Company B is still awaited however for the purposes of the tender evaluation the maximum score of 5 has been awarded. This highlights that the outstanding reference would have made no difference to the overall score achieved by Company B.

To appoint the Company B  who submitted a tender return – this was rejected as they do not represent the MEAT return.

The joint CBC/CBH Strategic Housing Delivery Group (SHDG) have been consulted on the proposed appointment.

The interview panel consisted of CBC and CBH employees

We have consulted colleagues internally, SHDG and the Cabinet Member for Housing who are all supportive of the proposal to appoint an external consultant to lead on the schedule of services noted overleaf. There is collective support that recognises the importance of this commission to assist CBC and CBH to realise their development and regeneration aspirations and assist in the planning and resourcing to ensure that this is achieved.